


Breathe

by Ghostmonument



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Flashbacks, Fluff, Kinda?, Kissing, Nightmares, No use of y/n, Other, PTSD, Tumblr request, gender neutral reader, oh my, otherwise this is p soft and tame honestly, pls don't read if flashbacks are upsetting!, post witchfinders, that episode huh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:01:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21680593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostmonument/pseuds/Ghostmonument
Summary: You find yourself sick with guilt over the events of the witch hunt in Lancashire, unable to stop reliving the moment when the Doctor was plunged into the lake and you did nothing to save her. Sleep offers no respite from the memories, and desperate to remind yourself that the Doctor is alive and well, you go looking for her while everyone else sleeps.
Relationships: 13th Doctor/Reader, 13th Doctor/You, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Reader
Comments: 15
Kudos: 150





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> Requested prompt from tumblr! Feel free to drop by, requests are open as always! Find me at myghostmonument!

_Breathe,_ you reminded yourself.  
  
Again, and again. _Breathe._ _  
_ _  
_A blur of sensations was flowing past your awareness without being truly registered: sound, colour, movement. The voices of your friends, and some other people too. An entire conversation. Movement, including your own. Life was happening, yet it passed right through you. You just put one foot in front of the other, and eventually you had found yourself in the TARDIS, with no real memory of arriving there. _Breathe._  
  
“So! Where to next? Past? Future? Present? Nobody ever thinks about the present, but there are so many presents happening all over the place - ”  
  
The Doctor had thrown off her coat as she reached the console, and was darting around it, her hands moving almost as fast as her words. Graham, Yaz and Ryan shared a look, considering.  
  
“I think it’s your turn to pick,” Yaz told Ryan, who pursed his lips. The Doctor’s head poked around the main crystal, eyes bright as she waited for the answer. The soft, muted light of the room didn’t so much illuminate her features as much as it suffused them. As if she too were a gently glowing crystal. You reminded yourself to breathe again as you watched her. She was safe, smiling, alive. _Breathe._  
  
“Presently I just want my bed,” Ryan announced finally. “One that’s not stuffed with hay.” The Doctor made a face.  
  
“Yeah, sleeping first sounds good,” Yaz agreed. “Sorry,” she added as the Doctor’s grimace deepened.  
  
“Well I wasn’t gonna say it but now that you have,” Graham began, before yawning. The Doctor’s grimace shifted into a full-on nose-wrinkled _scrunch_ as her eyes moved to you, imploring. _Breathe._ _  
_ _  
_In truth, you wanted to rest too. But when you tried to say that, the words got lost along the way, pushed aside. “Are you okay?” you asked, instead. The Doctor blinked, momentarily startled. Then her easy expression slid back into place and she turned away, busying herself at the controls. When she spoke her voice was breezy.  
  
“Okay? Of course I’m okay. You know me, I’m always okay. I’m the King of okay. Or should it be Queen now?” The Doctor paused, head falling to the side as she considered this. _Breathe,_ you reminded yourself.   
  
“I’d say go with your gut on this one,” Graham advised, yawning again. The Doctor wrinkled her nose.   
  
“Seems an unnecessary distinction, really,” she groused, sounding disapproving now, as if personally disappointed with gender constructs and titles. “You lot spend too much time worrying about that stuff.”  
  
“Hey, what’ve we said about talking potshots at humans?” Graham complained, and the Doctor flapped an unimpressed hand at him as she resumed darting around the console. “Anyway Doc, you’re the one as brought it up - ” Yaz and Ryan both groaned.  
  
“I’m not getting into this again,” Yaz announced, turning away. “I’ll see you all after a hot shower and a long nap. Stay out of trouble till then, yeah?”  
  
“That’d be a first,” Ryan said, following Yaz towards the corridor that led to everyone’s rooms.   
  
“Oi! I am perfectly capable of staying out of trouble, thank you,” the Doctor called indignantly to their retreating backs.   
  
“See that’s the problem with a flat team structure, you get no respect,” Graham observed philosophically. “Can’t have it both ways, Doc.” He was grinning, but it turned into yet another yawn. “Right. Bed. You coming, love?” The last words were directed at you, and you tore your eyes away from the Doctor to glance at him.  
  
“Yeah, in a minute,” you muttered, shifting your feet. Your eyes had already moved back to the Doctor, or what you could see of her anyway, hunched over the console. You didn’t see the appraising look on Graham’s face as he eyed the two of you. You didn’t even hear him leave. You were still watching her. _Breathe._ _  
_ _  
_“Not tired then?” the Doctor asked after a while, not immediately looking at you. It wasn’t uncommon for her to spend hours absorbed in tinkering with the TARDIS, but you felt that she was purposely finding reasons to avoid your gaze as she shifted around. When you were silent for too long, she finally straightened up and met your gaze. Her hair was slightly wavy, and she’d already collected a smudge of grease on her cheek. And though her expression was politely inquisitive, there was something about the console’s glow that highlighted the hollows under her eyes, and the tightness around her mouth. It had been there ever since she’d come out of that lake.  
  
“Are you sure you’re okay?” you asked again. You weren’t sure that it was your place to ask it, but if not you, then who? Surely _someone_ had to care for her, because you were starting to doubt that _she_ ever did. _Breathe._  
  
“ ‘Course,” the Doctor repeated. “No need to worry. Not the first time someone’s found me annoying enough to chuck in a lake.” Your face clearly reflected your unassuaged concerns, because she gifted you her brightest smile. “Get some rest, go on then. I promise not to jump in any bodies of water in the meantime.”  
  
Still you hesitated, unwilling to turn your back on her. Unwilling to leave her alone, to not _be there_ for her again. You looked at her, hunched over the console. She was softly lit, her hair glowing golden and almost translucent in places. She looked very small as she stood there, a lone star glimmering in the depths of space, and you wanted nothing so much as to cross that looming distance and wrap your arms around her, as if you could hold her so fiercely that you might somehow - _fix_ everything. As if you could keep her from being thrown in that lake, from being touched in fear and anger and _violence_.   
  
And as if you could finally hold her long enough to convince yourself that she was here, she was real. Was safe. Could not she feel this need? It was pulling at you like the forces of gravity, towards her. Always, towards her. Sometimes you thought she noticed it, that she must feel it too, this pull. When your eyes would touch from across a room, or a battlefield, or a table, you thought surely - surely she feels this too, the universe bending around us, _surely_ \-   
_  
__Breathe._

It didn’t matter. She wasn’t - she wasn’t _yours_ to claim, or to look after. You certainly could not go to her, not in the way that burned through your veins with such painful need. Lingering here like this, asking after the Doctor’s well-being… that was dangerous enough. Uncharted territory, in which you didn’t know the boundaries. Certainly it wasn’t your place to comfort the Doctor, and not when she was so relentlessly cheerful in the face of your concern. (But it not your place, then who's? _Who’s? Breathe._ ) 

So, you did as you always did, and resisted the pull, maintaining a careful hold on your emotions. Your feelings for her… they were vast, deep. Unexplored, and perhaps best left that way.   
  
When the Doctor glanced up at you again, still smiling, you ignored that jerk on your heart (on your soul, oh, _breathe_ ) and you smiled back. Weakly, perhaps. But a smile nonetheless.   
  
“No lakes,” you said.   
  
“Cross my hearts,” the Doctor said solemnly.   
  
And so you left her, alone in the dim console. And shortly after you fell into your bed, alone in your dim room. You stared at the wall for what felt like hours, trying and failing to not replay the memory, _that_ memory, to not see her bound and drowned. Over, and over. Alone, watched by many and helped by none.   
  
Was it any wonder that your gradual slide into sleep afforded you no respite from the memories? If anything, the dreams allowed the scenes to become brighter, sharper, slower. More cruel.   
  


The wind in your dream was cutting and cold as you stood again on the lake’s edge, colder even than it had been on that day. You felt that it was paring you away one bit at a time, stripping away flesh and muscle and emotions and leaving only stark, raw truth behind.  
  
Because you had realized the truth of you, standing there surrounded by your friends. You were a coward.   
  
You had to be. Only a coward would stand frozen as they watched their friend (as if friend was even an adequate word to describe her, to hold the shape and history and the _essence_ of what the Doctor was, what she had become to you) was ritualistically chained to a log and _drowned_ . It hadn’t happened fast, or without warning. There had been a process, conversations. It had been an _event_ . And you had just stood there, with Ryan and Graham and Yaz, while the wind knifed through you and revealed your true selves.   
  
There were plenty of reasons (excuses) why you didn’t act, any of you. Shock, certainly, and denial that this was happening at all. A lingering confidence that the Doctor was just playing along, and would never let herself actually be caught… be be chained… be mocked… be dunked -   
  
“No - “ with the word you jerked awake, terror flooding your limbs and crushing your chest. You sat up, drawing in a shuddering breath. You could feel your hands shaking. Your eyes were open, but the dream - the memories - continued their relentless flood, and you saw it again and again, the Doctor plunging into the lake, bound, mocked, alone. Saw again the water close over her head.   
  
You had finally acted, then. Maybe it was because of the four of you, you had the most to lose… or perhaps just the least faith. But when the Doctor had plunged into the water, something in you had broken. You might have screamed (you had) as your vision had gone white, lights exploding behind your eyes. Your frozen legs had leaped forwards, shoes slipping in the mud, hands reaching, _reaching_ for her, even as the ripples and bubbles on the lake quelled. But you hadn’t even been able to act retroactively, hadn’t been able to even try. Because long before you made it to the water that had gone terrifyingly still, a vise had clamped around you, binding your arms to your side. Keeping you from her.   
  
You _knew_ you had screamed that time. It was the same scream that had lingered on your lips as you jerked awake, back on the TARDIS.   
  
You hadn’t actually been bound, of course. In reality it had been Ryan’s arms around you. Very cognizant of both his coordination abilities and the fact that he was easily the largest member of the Team, it was rare for Ryan to access his strength. Rarer still, for him to use it _against_ anyone. But when the King had cried “duck her”, when you had stopped breathing and watched those cold waters close over the Doctor’s head and had leaped after her, when you had _screamed_ , Ryan had used every bit of his size and strength to catch you and hold you to him.   
  
“You can’t, you can’t, it won’t help - ” he had pleaded, his own voice breaking, his own arms trembling with the need to go to her, to _save_ her, this extraordinary woman who you were all just watching die.   
  
You’d have to apologize to him. You had the lingering suspicion you might have kicked his shins; you _knew_ you had scrabbled at his arms, ripping your nails on his coat and probably wounding him. And he had borne it all. Had held you, kept you safe, even in the face of his own agony and rage and fear. (Yeah, you’d definitely need to be apologizing to him.)   
  
But you weren’t thinking about that yet, as you swung your legs off the bed and gripped the sheets with shaking hands. Your ribs felt too tight, a band of pressure that your heart threw itself against, again and again. You swallowed hard, shutting your eyes and burying your face in hands that still shook.   
  
You still couldn’t wrap your mind around how close you all had come to losing her (and how much it affected you, hollowed you out and left a gaping void where something else, something happy had once been). Oh, the Doctor could gloss it over with her normal disregard for such petty human fears like drowning, or death. _It’d take more than a few minutes in a lake and some rubbish chains to be rid of me,_ she’d declared, complete with her signature cheeky grin.   
  
But you weren’t so sure.   
  
Again and again, your re-lived it. Those clever, slender hands in chains. The wind, lifting strands of her hair. Her silhouette, alone on the edge of the water as everyone backed away. Her eyes, as the water closed over her head. The _silence_ that followed it.   
  
That silence… you didn’t think you’d ever forget it. It had found its way in you, into that void, and somehow it left you even more hollow.   
  
“No, no, no,” you gasped, you chest rising and falling jerkily. You just couldn’t stop seeing it. Couldn’t stop living it. The Doctor, your Doctor, and you had just stood there and let violence happen to her. Your fists pounded the mattress on either side of you as you gasped in a shuddering breath, lest your lingering fear and shame choke you.   
  
You had to see her again. You had to - you had to make sure she was still here. Breathing, laughing, safe. Maybe then you could sleep. Maybe then you could start to live with yourself again.   
  
You didn’t have the faintest idea what time it was, or how long you had been sleeping. There weren’t any clocks in your room, or you suspected anywhere else on the TARDIS. That seemed on-brand for the Doctor (although an entire room devoted to clocks would also be on-brand, she was just like that). And you’d lost your mobile several adventures ago. It probably didn’t matter. Even if was still the dead of whatever passed as night on the TARDIS, you figured the Doctor was unlikely to be sleeping. You’d never actually _seen_ her sleep, and she was remarkably offhand and vague about it whenever the subject was broached. Ryan had a whole conspiracy theory about it.   
  
So, your hands still shaking and your throat still tight with that choking mixture of fear and shame, you stood up and left your room. Your breathing steadied some as you walked, now that you were moving and had a goal. You just needed to see her, and then maybe you could rest. (You knew that was probably a lie. But it was better than nothing. Seeing her was always better than anything.)   
  
But she wasn’t in the main console room. It still glowed with soft light and softer humming, but with no familiar form of the Doctor darting to and fro, it seemed suddenly… wrong, as you loitered in a doorway and looked up at those massive crystals. You didn’t feel like an intruder, precisely, but your skin still prickled with unease as you gazed out at the shadowed, empty room that normally rang with such laughter and noise and life. The quiet struck a chord in you, something that resonated painfully with that hollow place where your heart had been. This was what it would be like if she had actually - if she was truly - if -   
  
“No,” you gasped, clutching the door frame with one hand while the other fisted at your side. _No._ “I have to see her. Then I’ll know - then I can - _I have to see her_.”   
  
Silence, save for your ragged breathing, in and out. In and out. Then something hummed in your ear. You jumped and straightened up, turning to see a flashing light along the wall. It pulsed, then vanished, reappearing several yards farther down the corridor. You eyed it, then glanced over your shoulder at the main console.   
  
“Uh, am I meant to follow?” you voiced, hesitantly. The Doctor was never entirely clear on how sentient this timeship of hers actually was, and in this dark empty room, with the echoes of your dream still thrumming in your blood… it was easy to lose what tenuous grasp on reality you had left. The console remained silent, but the lights flickered again, brighter. Annoyed?   
  
“Right, sorry,” you said. What else was there to do? You followed them, because lead you they did. Deeper into the TARDIS, areas you’d never seen before. You weren’t sure if you traveled a great distance or merely a few steps; time seemed to loosen its hold on you, gentling and blurring its edges.   
  
You reached another doorway, and blinked as the lights that had been your sole focus and companion dimmed and vanished. You felt surprisingly bereft without them. _Wait,_ you wanted to say. _Come back, don’t leave me._ But the words died before they reached your lips, because you’d edged closer to the doorway and all at once you forgot everything but her, _her_. The TARDIS had led you to the Doctor, just as you’d asked. Real, breathing, _alive._   
  
“Thank you,” you whispered, your hand finding the wall as you blinked back sudden tears, your knees sagging with the relief that surged through you. “Oh, thank you.” Warmth bloomed beneath your palm as the TARDIS gave a soft hum of acknowledgement.   
  
You scrubbed at your eyes, wiping away the traces of tears before they could fall and watching as the Doctor moved in and out of your field of vision. She looked rumpled, from what you could tell; her hair was curling in a way that indicated she’d been running her hands through it, and she wasn’t wearing her coat, her suspenders hanging loose at her hips. She was also talking to herself, but her voice was too low and she was too far for you to make any of it out. Which was fine. Good, even; you weren’t here to spy on her. You had just needed to see her.   
  
You took a steadying breath and prepared to turn away, hesitating only when the Doctor crossed back into view. She stopped, still muttering to herself. Or perhaps to the TARDIS. The light in the room was muted, a hair’s breadth away from being truly dim. You idly wondered what room it actually was - and then promptly stopped wondering anything at all as the Doctor abruptly shrugged out of her shirts.   
  
Your entire brain jammed, heat flooding your face and then sweeping through the rest of you. _Oh, uh, wait, uh -_ _  
_ _  
_ Feeling as if you were trying to claw your way through mud, you wrestled your brain back into cooperation with your body and turned to leave, _quickly_. Gods, spying was bad enough, but while she undressed? _Oh no, no._ This was sacrosanct - _she_ was sacrosanct.   
  
So you turned your blazing face away, towards the welcome darkness of the TARDIS corridor. But as you did, something caught your attention, told your subconscious _hey, wait, look again, you missed it_. You couldn’t help yourself; you glanced back in the room. And froze. Because the Doctor was still visible. And so was the massive stain of marbled blue and purple running across her back.   
  
Your breath caught in your throat. And you were stepping into the room and crossing to the Doctor long, long before your mind caught up with your body. Shock was coursing through you, but you could feel something else on its heels, gathering, a wave preparing to strike. It was, you realized distantly, rage.   
  
Your mind still hadn’t caught up when you reached out a hand. Your finger brushed along the edge of the bruise, at her jutting shoulder blade.   
  
The Doctor yelped, whirling on you faster than you would have thought possible, her hands thrown up to ward you off. You had jumped as well, the spell broken and your face flushing as you stumbled back a step.   
  
“You - scared the daylights out of me,” the Doctor said, dropping her hands and sounding equal parts relieved and annoyed. You registered that she was wearing only a bra; you’d never seen so much of her skin before. This was - bad. This was really bad. What had you been thinking? You opened your mouth to say _I’m sorry, I’ll leave now, please don’t chuck me into a supernova like I definitely deserve._ _  
_   
“Did they do that to you?” you asked, instead, and were surprised at the intensity of your voice. The Doctor clearly was too, her aggrieved look faded and was replaced by something else, something hard to pin down. She seemed to be deciding whether or not to evade the question, as she was wont to do. She brushed her hair out of her eyes, avoiding your gaze, but that only drew your attention to her wrists. You sucked in a breath; raw red stripes encircled them, stark against her pale skin. _Rope burns._ The Doctor’s eyes flicked to yours at your breath, and she dropped her hand hastily and tried to shove them both into her trouser pockets, only to wince as the fabric scraped over the raw, angry wounds.   
  
“Why didn’t you say something?” you asked her, your voice thin and brittle. Like ice, cracking. Look what they’d done to her, your Doctor, _look what they’d done to her_ . Rage was making your hands shake again, but grief was rising now in its wake. “You should have told us - ”   
  
“What? Oh, no. This is nothing. Hardly worth mentioning, really, just some bumps, hardly even notice ‘em. All part of the job, you know.” Her voice was light, but she wasn’t meeting your eyes.   
  
“Doctor - ”   
  
“Oi, I’m fine, no need to fuss.”   
  
“Fine?” you asked, incredulous, and you reached out, your hand settling lightly on her shoulder and gently turning her so that you could again see that lurid pattern of bruising that ran across her spine. “ _Fine?_ ” Rage was still coursing through your veins, but the tide was coming in, and grief was catching up. “This is not - _fine_ \- this is the opposite of _fine_ \- ”   
  
The Doctor was silent under this onslaught, looking absolutely gobsmacked. You weren’t generally one for taking command, certainly not over _her,_ and you both were always so _careful_ around each other. No superfluous touches, no casual affection. Yet now you held the Doctor’s warm shoulder with one hand, while your other lifted to trace the edges of that ugly bruise, and she was still beneath your touch. Letting you hold her. _Touch_ her. Oh, but these were uncharted waters.   
  
“I can’t believe they did this,” you murmured, and perhaps the Doctor could hear the hint of tears in your words, because she shrugged.   
  
“I heal fast, me. Hardly bothers me half so much as it did.”   
  
“But it does hurt,” you said, your words almost a whisper. She didn’t reply to that. It hadn’t been a question. Your fingers ghosted over the bruising, and though her skin shivered and jumped in places, she didn’t pull away. But then your fingers found a rougher section, the skin raw. It was clearly a former wound, bruised so deeply that the skin had broken. The Doctor made a stifled sound as you brushed it, and you immediately moved your hand. “I’m sorry,” you whispered, tears pooling in your eyes.   
  
“It’s fine - ”   
  
“No, it’s not,” you cried, your voice breaking. You let out a shuddering breath and rested your forehead against the nape of her neck. “I let you down,” you whispered, and the pooling tears overflowed, began to slide down your face. “I should have been there, should never have let them get their hands on you, should have stopped them from trying to kill you, but I just stood there, I let them - ”   
  
“Hey, hey, hold on,” the Doctor was saying over your words. She finally turned in your arms. “This isn’t your fault!” she was trying to catch your eyes, and finally settled for a hand under your chin, lifting it. “You didn’t let me down, don’t be daft.”   
  
You looked at her earnest, concerned face while tears ran silently down your cheeks. “Oh, what’s this then?” she asked softly, moving her hand so that she could wipe away a tear. “I’m fine, honestly. ”

“I keep - I keep seeing it, seeing it happen - ” you choked on the words. “I almost lost you. I just stood there, and _I almost lost you_ , and I can’t stop seeing it - ” you were shaking as much as your voice, now. The Doctor’s lips had parted as she stared at you.   
  
“What do you mean, you can’t stop seeing it? And anyway, from what I can gather you did not ‘just stand there',” the Doctor added, her lips twitching. “Ryan showed me a very nicely bruised shin earlier, I’m proper impressed. Didn’t know you had it in you.” She clearly meant to lighten the mood, but your throat only tightened, the tears falling faster.   
  
“Oh, okay, alright,” she murmured, and reached up to cradle your face. You closed your eyes, her compassionate scrutiny suddenly too much to bear. “It’s over. It’s okay. I’m here now, hey?” Her thumbs moved in soft circles over your cheeks as she searched your face. “Look at me,” she said. “Come on, look, there you are.” You exhaled shakily, staring back into those hazel depths that captured you so easily, so completely. You sniffed, angry with yourself. You knew you were doing this wrong, that this had somehow become about you, and your pain, when it was the Doctor who had been hurt, the Doctor who you wanted to help.   
  
“Nobody lost me, I’m right here,” she said, the low light in the room catching her eyes as they roved over your face. You could see flecks of gold in them, glimmering like so many stars. She wiped away another tear. 

“I should have helped you,” you whispered, wretched with the shame of it. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” the Doctor said firmly, her eyes still moving over your face. “Except for skulking in here and scaring me half to Skaro, maybe.” She affected sternness as she said it, but you knew her heart wasn’t in it. She was still looking at you so carefully, her hand on your face. As if you were the one who had been brave, who had been hurt. Oh, you were _doing this wrong._

“I just - needed to see you,” you said, your voice low. “The dreams - ” You broke off. Took a breath. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”  
  
“Hm,” the Doctor said, her brows lifting, “bit late for that, though.” She frowned, eyes darting to the side in thought. “How _did_ you find me? This is a bit off the beaten path, TARDIS-wise.” She still didn’t sound angry, just curious.   
  
“I don’t entirely know,” you answered. “I looked for you in the main console, and then these lights came on and they led me to - here,” you finished. _Led me to you._ _  
_ _  
_ “Really? She doesn’t usually do that. What are you, offering guided tours now?” The last words were directed to the room at large as the Doctor stepped away from you, hands landing on her hips. You became aware again that she wasn’t wearing a shirt. _Oh, oh, crap -_   
  
“Uh - do you want a - your shirt -” you were tripping all over yourself, trying to set your brain and mouth back onto the same path of coherency. The Doctor swung back around to you, brows lifted again in a very familiar look indeed.   
  
“You humans and your modesty,” she said, falling into her standard cadence for remarking on humanity’s failings. “So many rules about when and where you should be clothed, who should be clothed, what type of clothes - and then once they’re laid out, you break all of the rules! Just switch them around, and expect everyone to catch up! Here I am, minding my own business, and now I’m told I ought to be embarrassed not to be wearing a shirt! In my room! No, I am not having it. You will take me as I am, _ah_ -”   
  
She had moved around as she spoke, gesticulating wildly as only she could, but on the last gesture her face twisted in a flash of pain as she moved her injured shoulder. The expression was gone in an instant, but you had seen it, had heard the slight hitch in her speech. Without thinking, you moved forwards again. Reached out.

You turned her gently, fingers again ghosting over that lurid mark, that thing that was hurting her. You knew it wasn’t the _true_ source of her pain, not really. Bumps, scrapes, bruises; you’d seen her bear them all and worse with a bright smile and brighter enthusiasm. No, her pain here ran deeper than physical.   
  
“I’m not made of glass, you know,” she said, sounding a bit annoyed, and a bit something else. She had gone very still. “We Time Lords aren’t half so fragile as you lot.”   
  
“Fragile enough,” you whispered, eyes roving that bruise, that mark of violence done against her. You leaned forwards acting on nothing but instinct, on _need_ , and brushed your lips along her jutting scapula, along the edge of that violence. You heard her breathing hitch, but she did not move. So you let your lips move, following the path of that violence as if you could smooth it away, undo it. Your hands trailed down until they rested on the Doctor’s hips, fingers just curling around the hem of her trousers, your palms warm against her skin as you held her. God, what were you thinking?   
  
“I should go,” you said, reluctantly, your nose resting in her hair as you leaned your face against her. You could feel her pulse, the warm blood rushing beneath her skin. The moment seemed to expand, crystallize, trembling on the edge of - something. But of what?   
  
“Then why are you still here?” the Doctor asked, softly. You weren’t sure what you read in her voice.   
  
“Why are _you_?”   
  
In answer, she turned in your arms again. You weren’t sure, later, who kissed who first. You both had a good case for it, as your lips met and your bodies pressed together.   
  
Your hands found themselves moving as well, wrapping around the Doctor and holding her to you. She made a low sound, or maybe it was you, and your lips found hers again eagerly, desperately. It wasn’t until your hands slid farther around her as she pressed into you that she stiffened, hissed in a soft breath against your face. You’d inadvertently pressed against the edges of the bruise.   
  
“Sorry, oh, I’m sorry,” you said, agonized, pulling away to look at her and dropping your hands.   
  
“It’s fine,” she insisted, but you were shaking your head.   
  
“Will you stop saying that?”   
  
“Maybe if you start believing me,” she replied, her face scrunching. You scrunched back, and you both stared at each other like that before breaking at the same time, the Doctor laughing and your own scrunch tipping into a smile before you too laughed.   
  
“Rule one, the Doctor lies,” you told her. Her scrunch returned.   
  
“My rules are always changing,” she countered. “What do I need to do to prove it to you?” Her voice had started light, but it ended somewhere else, on a pitch you couldn’t immediately pin down but made your stomach flutter in a _most_ distracting manner.   
  
“I have a few ideas,” you said. Her answering smile seemed to light up the room. Again that flutter, again that pull towards her, always her. But this time, you let it move you. But this time, her eyes met yours, _and she moved too._ You came together like the tide reaching for the shore, like celestial bodies, like there had never been any other possible outcome.   
  
You took her face in your hands, stared into those star-spun eyes.   
  
“I’m glad you’re fine,” you whispered, her cheeks warm against your hands as you looked at her. She was still smiling, her eyes huge and soft and shining, those flecks of gold in them seeming to glitter, and you knew that these were eyes you could get lost in. You could feel them tugging on you, pulling you in as if they were getting larger, closer, twin galaxies expanding to fill your whole vision - and then the Doctor had closed the space between you, and her lips were against yours and your hands were tangled in her hair and nothing else mattered.   
  
“Me too,” she whispered against your mouth.   
  
“I might need to make sure though,” you said. She didn’t answer, but you could feel her smile as you pressed tighter together. No longer alone, either of you.   
  
Breathe, you reminded yourself, as your heart raced and your blood sang and that terrible silence in you quieted, retreated in the face of such swelling, deafening joy.   
  
_Oh, breathe._   
  



End file.
